There is something gross lurking in my house. I’m pretty sure it’s in the kitchen but it might be the dining room. I can’t really describe the odor… Something like a dirty diaper, spoiled milk and garbage thats been sitting in the sun for 3 days in the summer. All at the same time. Then there’s some kind of organic undertone, like rotten vegetables and… onions?

I can’t find it.

It’s been 3 days and it’s getting progressively worse and I cannot find where it originates.

The smell is starting to creep into my living room. I’ll be sitting on the couch giving the Peach a bottle and all of a sudden I get a faint whiff…

What the hell ISthat?????

My house is a little bit messy, sure, and I have to sweep daily because Fairy Dog decided he didn’t like his fur and was going to replace it all at once, but I think we’d notice something sitting in the corner rotting. I’ve never been a neat person, but, at least since becoming an adult, I am clean. My house is always cluttered and messy and everything inevitably has dog hair on it but I never have bugs or mice (except for the one field mouse per year The Beast will kill and leave in my living room). I clean spills up right away so there’s never anything sticky on the floor or various surfaces and my house never EVER smells. I make sure Princess Punk cleans out The Beast’s litter box every few days because it drives me farking insane to walk down to her room and smell that disgusting ammonia-y odor. I clean out the fridge regularly and without mercy, if it’s past the expiration date, it goes. If it’s a jar of something that nobody’s eaten in over a month? Too bad. The Zen Master eats pickles at least once a week just to make sure I don’t chuck ’em.

So what the f*ck is that smell?

I spent a good hour last night walking randomly around my kitchen and dining room sniffing the air and various corners and crevices like some kind of scent seeking hound. No luck.

(Editor’s note- this ENTIRE first 2 paragraphs are re-written since for some reason they disappeared when I posted it)

This week has been kinda weird. Not “unusual” weird, more like “this does not feel like a normal week” weird. I’ve been (sorta) busy at work (still am yet here I sit writing a post (Editor’s note- AGAIN) ). Things are good at home. The Peach has slept through the night all week with the exception of last night when she woke up once (which I didn’t hear AT ALL, The Zen Master got her). I’ve had this stupid headache all week but at least I have an appointment with the Doc soon. I got a nice refund check for the money we spent on tickets for seats we didn’t get to sit in last Saturday. I even stuck to my budget this week. The only things out of the ordinary are a major thingy at work today and Princess Punk leaving tonight to spend the weekend in Boston with my dad and her church youth group. They’ll be working in a soup kitchen and I’m very proud of her for getting out there and doing something to help others. She did get her period on Wednesday which, in addition to being girl stuff, totally throws her blood sugar out of whack, but I’ve got faith in my dad to be able to handle it.

Anyway… Not exactly an average week but nothing totall weird. I just feel kinda… off. No, that’s not right. Maybe “out of sorts?” Nope. I think “weird” is really the only way to describe it. Maybe that it’s just what’s out of the ordinary is that nothing is out of the ordinary. Kinda like I’m waiting for something to happen. Mo major schmidt hit the fan this week. No massive bills we didn’t know about, no illness, no emergencies, no insanity, no car malfunction no NEW car malfunction, no mood swings, no phone calls from teachers, nothing new to stress over. I have enough money in my account to cover the bills I paid this week and I’ll actually make it to payday this week with enough money to put gas in my car. The Peach has been (mostly) content, Princess Punk hasn’t been giving me too much ‘tude even though she was PMSing, The Zen Master has been cheerful and helpful around the house and life is just chugging along.

Apparently things have been a bit stressful lately because a week of normalcy feels completely foreign. Go Figure.

The Peach did have a mega-fantastic-grosssly-spectacular blowout last night… While I was making dinner… It took so long to get her cleaned up, I burned the onions and garlic I was sauteing.

Gotta say, if that’s the worst thing that happened this week, life is pretty damn good.

Before I get into this, let me reiterate that I am generally pretty happy with my life. I’ve got loving friends and family, a job I love, 2 fantastic beautiful girls and my health, while weird, is pretty good. That being said…

In addition to all the other crap I’ve discussed that’s wrong with me… (I REALLY am not complaining, just commenting I swear) I also have TMD. Basically, my jaw is totally f***ed up. I’ve had this issue for as long as I can remember and it’s been getting progressively worse over the years.

Completely out of the socket, they showed me on X-rays

Apparently my ligaments are kinda loose (oh, The Zen Master could take that a zillion different filthy places) and my jaw completely dislocates on the left side whenever I open my mouth too wide. Too wide for me is apparently more than about 2cm (That’s what she said). Where was I? Oh right. My screwed up jaw. I’ve modified my life for years to accommodate the issue. I never chew gum and I keep my mouth in a neutral position when not chewing or speaking (teeth slightly apart with the tongue resting on the back of the front teeth). I try not to clench my teeth too often which is not always easy given my temper and Princess Punk’s ‘tude. The left joint has pretty much always been an issue, it clicks when I chew, cracks when I yawn (both loud enough so that people sitting 10 feet away can hear it… gross) and causes neck and shoulder tightness and aching pretty much constantly. When it’s really aggravated, It’ll give me a monster headache on top of it all. Since I got pregnant with The Peach, my right jaw has been acting up as well. I was hoping that it would resolve after I had her but no such luck, it’s rapidly been getting worse over the past few months.

I’ve had a headache for 12 days straight now.

Overall, I’m still functioning fine, doing what I need to do with only a little bit of grumpiness but it’s become incredibly painful to open my mouth more than a few cm and repeated use (like chewing food, get your mind out of the gutter) will make my headache worse to the point where I will occasionally need to just lay down. Apparently, the inflammation is occasionally encroaching on my optic nerves so I will randomly get a pretty little fireworks display that only I can see. I’ve gotten to the point I actually dread eating. I can barely open my mouth wide enough to get a spoon in, it’s absolutely ridiculous. Do you know how many times in a day you have to open your mouth? Not even considering food, things as simple as talking and brushing my teeth or flossing have become uncomfortable or downright painful.

Treatment? Well, there’s the kicker. I’m undergoing physical therapy, to strengthen all the muscles around my jaw in order to help support the loose ligaments and keep the joint in place when I open my mouth. It’s not helping much. Another negative about living in Vermont? Not a lot of specialists around. TMJ specialists? One. In the entire murtherfurking state. He has a six month waiting list just for a CONSULT. Luckily, he also has a call-list in case of cancellations. Because my job is pretty flexible, i can go into the doctor on short notice, so YAY, I have an appointment May 10th, only 2 months after I first called his office. I’m likely going to have a splint that’ll make me talk funny and if that doesn’t work, I may end up with surgery. God, I hope not.

SO anyway, headache, cranky, not wanting to eat and a deprived husband… Okay that was too much information, sorry about that.

The Peach slept through the night. Again. This makes 5 nights straight now. The Zen Master and I keep waking up around 4 am and running into her room to make sure she’s still alive. I actually went in this morning at around 5 and poked her to make her move. Mean Mommy. She was seriously in the exact same somebody-shot-me position she’d been in when I put her in the crib last night.

My mother-in-law babysat for us Saturday night when we went to the concert. When she got there, about 20 minutes before we had to leave, she took The Peach and The Peach started screaming. Like, not breathing, turning purple, sweaty, drooling screaming. Okay, so my MIL hasn’t been over too often but Peach is too little for that whole stranger anxiety thing. It was awful. Luckily we had enough time before we left that she basically just screamed herself unconscious but I felt AWFUL leaving her. So when we got home, I told MIL that she should come over more often so The Peach would get more used to her.

So she came to dinner on Monday. Without warning. Not complaining but it was a bit of a surprise when she pulled up right behind me in my driveway as I’m getting home from picking up The Peach. I had enough food for dinner and she pretty much held the (now calm) Peach the whole time she was there. It was actually pretty nice to have her over. I think I lucked out in the MIL department. She’s weird and pretty damn perverted, sure, but so are we. I mean you have to expect The Zen Master’s parents are going to be a little odd, they did raise him. It does make me worry about my own kids a bit though. Princess Punk has all of a sudden developed an odd habit of loudly blurting out “Titties!” at random times (like really random… she called it out from the bathroom in the middle of dinner last night). It’s really weird. I’m sure it doesn’t help that every time I change The Peach’s clothes I coo at her, “I see your taco! I see your itty-bitty titties!” And then I tickle her until she squeals.

All of a sudden I’m sitting at my desk at work… Did Sunday even happen? I know there was a Saturday, I posted, there’s proof. Plus I remember going to see Carmina Burana Sturday night and having to STAND through the majority of the performance even thought we PAID for seats. That was annoying. I went grocery shopping yesterday and Crazy Girl came over for dinner but I swear it still felt like Saturday. It was a rather unpleasant surprise when my alarm went off before 5am this morning and I realized that yes, it is in fact Monday.

Princess Punk was in slow-motion mode this morning since she’d been on spring break all last week and her body forgot that she actually has to wake up before 10am on weekdays. Lunches got packed, hair got brushed, pre-teens got dressed and babies were strapped into car seats. I got ready to leave, called to The Zen Master that I was leaving and got, “I’d give you a kiss good-bye but I’m kinda taking a crap… Love you!”

I am sitting on my couch with a sleeping Peach in my lap while The Zen Master does the dishes. Princess Punk is at my mom’s house with her latest “bestie” having spent the day at Lake Champlain and the Echo Aquarium yesterday. There is some ethereal Japanese music playing from The Zen Master’s computer. The Peach slept through the night again… well pretty much at least, she slept from 9pm to 4am which is a solid 7 hours. Can’t complain about that.

The day will be pretty busy; cleaning this morning, Princess Punk has a soccer game at noon (indoor still, outdoor starts next month), grocery shopping, a trip to the garden supply store for pet food and wasp spray (apparently over the winter a nest developed on our front porch… joy) and then to Burlington this evening with The Zen Master and The Princess and my mom to watch my dad sing Carmina Burana with the Burlington Choral Society. It is one of my favorite pieces of music. If you’ve never listened to it in it’s entirety, I highly reccomend it, especially when accompanied by a copy of the translation (it’s in I think 3 different languages, German, English and Latin). There’s nothing better than baudy monks singing about love and booze…